Serentis
by chossytoss
Summary: Mara struggles through a hard time, and Leia learns that blood and water are really not so different. Han would just like to know why his kitchen looks like a warzone. EU compliant to a point.


**A/N:** _Hey there. I had actually posted this briefly before, but it was in need of some edits so I took it down for an overhaul. I'm sure some of you know that feel, when you post something and then you're like, wait, no. Anyway two quick things - I don't understand Star Wars cursing because it has no contextual meaning for me (and most people?), so forgive me for that. And the timeline may seem a little confusing, but it switches over to present tense somewhere in the middle, so just be wary of that. Okay, enjoy!_

* * *

Leia hadn't thought much of Mara Jade, in the beginning. Back when she was all fury and mystery and _I'm going to kill your brother_.

She was just a little too standoffish, a little too arrogant, and entirely too Empire. Han liked her, in a gruff sort of way, and they certainly appreciated that they owed her a debt for the twins, but Leia grew wary of the way Mara kept ending up involved in New Republic affairs.

Luke was…intrigued by her, and it made Leia's skin crawl.

Often, she found herself combating her own instincts. How badly she wanted to corner Jade, grab her by the shoulders and demand that she reveal everything she knew. It didn't feel right having her around.

She had no idea why Luke kept volunteering to put himself in danger with her. _For_ her.

Once, amused at her apparent level of distraction, Han had leaned into her shoulder at one particular briefing, pretending to listen as they both watched the kid give his report. Mara sat beside Luke in broody silence, there at his request.

"I think she's replacing you, Princess," he had whispered, only half kidding.

"Oh shut up."

Mara sat unfazed, jaw locked tightly, but Han could've sworn he saw her eyes flicker in their direction.

It wasn't until they were all huddled on the _Falcon_, silent, exhausted and wounded after their scuffle with that psychotic C'baoth, that Leia started to believe what her husband said about Mara.

Luke couldn't take his eyes off her.

* * *

She was fine, at first.

There were burns, on her arms and chest and stomach, and the bacta was just not enough. It slowly healed and repaired her skin, but it didn't stop the pain. Torturous, stinging, unrelenting pain. Pain so bad she could not form words for the medical droid once she finally sought help.

Force energy is not like fire or the heat from a blaster. The wounds are less simple, less predictable. They don't hurt. They destroy.

(The insane Jedi that gave them to her was none of those things, so perhaps it was fitting.)

The bacta was not enough, so they gave her pills.

They helped, immensely, and it was not long before she could feign normality with the rest of them. But when it didn't quite go away, not completely, she skipped the droid and just started medicating herself. A slightly higher dosage and she'd be fine.

She'd be fine, she told herself.

Until she wasn't.

Until she needed them to function at all. Until she was forced to steal them from the medical bay. Until she started having mood swings, and felt sad and angry and elated all at once. Until normal things began to overwhelm her, and she started seeing things that weren't real. Until she couldn't remember places, or time, or anything, and just stopped showing up.

Until months and months of erratic behavior forced Karrde, of all people, to warn her that she could not be both an addict and his second-in-command.

Until she found herself in front of a mirror, staring at a ghost, knowing just how far she had fallen.

She would not fall any further.

(Until she did.)

* * *

The whole thing was not her idea, and he had to know that, because she didn't want to be the only one responsible for the fallout.

He thought that it would heal her, that she would be able to move on without the shadow of the late Emperor forever behind her. That it would make her stronger with the Force, and help her regain some of her lost memories – chunks of her early childhood that had mysteriously gone missing while in the employ of the Empire.

Reluctantly she agreed, if only to get him to stop his nagging about her delayed Jedi training. And, well…she was supposed to be working on their "thing", and it seemed to make him happy.

She just hadn't realized how far it would go.

* * *

"Leia, are you all right?"

Startled out of her thoughts, she forced her gaze onto her brother, who – she thought, irritably – had an uncanny ability to know when she wasn't paying attention.

"Why?"

"You haven't heard a word I've said."

Leia sighed lightly, guilt creeping at his tone.

"Sorry."

"Are you really that worried?"

She didn't answer right away, instead turning back to the scene that had her so captivated in the first place. Mara was outside "playing" with the twins, looking thoroughly uncomfortable as Jaina dragged her around by the hand.

"I don't know."

"I think it will help. She'll be freer without the mental block. Stronger."

Carelessly she tried to laugh it off, smiling softly as she watched her children.

"Like we need that. I know she's been giving them shooting lessons behind my back."

Luke laughed, but he didn't miss the look she hides.

* * *

_I know who you are._

_Yes, I do. I know you._

_I could end you. You'd be gone in a heartbeat. All I'd have to do is say a few words to the Hutt._

_I'll give you one offer, and that'll be your only chance. You have one chance. One._

_(Waiting, waiting, until –)_

_Tell me why the Emperor sent his whore to Tatooine, and I'll forget I know your name._

_(A grunt, flesh and bone snapping, movement in the shadows, a stilling blade against her neck, then her face against concrete)_

_I knew you'd do that. Fool. Get up._

_(Unsteady legs, hooded eyes, burning into his newly broken hand)_

_Good girl. Now tell me what you're doing here._

_(No. No. No, she won't. Fuck him and his fucking henchmen.)_

_Fine. I'll find out soon enough. You can keep your secrets._

_(Five against one, unarmed, exposed, cornered)_

_But you owe me, Jade._

_(Knee in the back, palms against the floor, his fist gripping her hair)_

_I know who you are._

* * *

Mara came crashing back to reality with a nasty headache and a short fuse. She must have fallen over at some point, because she found herself flat on her back and blinking sweat out of her eyes.

That one…that one wasn't like the others. They'd been rifling through her mind for weeks, and the memories were always distant, hazy, or repressed in some way. She could _feel_ things, sometimes, when they were both incredibly focused, but it was rarely more than that. Not sounds, not vivid images. Not real events played out like a bad holodrama.

And they were never this recent, nor this viscerally intense.

Skywalker, with his irritating calm, was not fooled by her silence.

"Whatever anger you're feeling towards me now is just a remnant of what you felt then. Nothing more. You have to let it go."

She picked herself off the ground, glaring, sick.

"No. No. It _is_ you I'm angry with. Why do you _want_ to see this?"

She'd never, ever, wanted to think about the disgusting things she had to do to gain favor with Jabba the Hutt again, and yet those memories had just slammed into her without warning. And it infuriated her he so casually knew about them now, too.

"This isn't about me. This is meant to help you –"

"It's not helping. It's not. I won't do it anymore."

Luke sighed, tone still inappropriately peaceful (which did not help her mood, not in the slightest).

"You're afraid, Mara."

She was back on her feet, accusatory finger pointed directly at him.

"Not everything is fear and anger, Skywalker!" she snapped, keeping her distance from him. "You're not the one who has to relive these things, for hours, days, weeks after we finish. You're not the one that ends up suffering every night. None of that falls on you. So just stay away from my head."

He watched her storm off, thinking of thick sand and burning sun and his lightsaber soaring through the sky. Of the chains still attached to his twin, wrapped viciously around the Hutt in his last moments.

He wondered what it felt like.

* * *

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Same as always. Too many squabbles, not enough Jedi in the galaxy. I'll be fine."

Leia wasn't fooled.

"So why are you checking your comlink every two seconds?"

Unsurprised by his own lack of subtlety, he pushed his empty bowl towards the center of the table. At the look on his sister's face, his good humor faded.

"It's Mara. She's been…off…lately. She's confused, and upset, and she refuses to talk. It's a bad time to leave."

"Could she be plotting your death?" Leia asked seriously, amused at her own not-joke.

"That was years ago," he snapped, not an ounce of humor in his words.

A pause, and then –

"Oh my god."

"What?" he asked, suddenly concerned, instinctively checking the room around him.

"You're in love with her aren't you?"

(And she could almost feel Vader turning over in his grave, and that made her smile more than it should.)

Luke laughed, but she didn't miss the look he hides.

* * *

Nothing helps. It's not helping.

She still _feels hears tastes _everything, and the bottle flies across the room, crashing against the wall and spilling the little pink pills across the floor.

It's not _helping_.

She's not fine anymore.

And after she comes down, it feels like she never will be. That's worse.

It's early in the morning, but Leia pulls open the door before she can lift a finger towards the buzzer. She stands stiffly, arms crossed against her chest, trying (failing) not to look as desperate as she feels.

"Mara?"

"I think I need to talk to you."

* * *

It's her hands.

Not the faltering of her voice (and she does not falter – not ever), and not the way her shoulders tense as her eyes scan the viewport intently. Stars, infinity. Nothing. She remains focused.

(Those eyes don't help, but it's not that either.)

It's her hands.

One gripping the rail, twisting against it, skin flushing white. The other, clutched against the lower part of her stomach in what looked like a death vice. Like she's struggling to stay composed.

"I'm addicted to painkillers."

And Leia knows she is telling the truth.

The admission shocks her, at first, and the other woman must feel it, because she refuses to tear her gaze away from the window. And yet Leia's voice is quiet, accepting. She mindlessly fiddles with the spoon of her stew – long since gone cold – as she speaks.

"Since when?"

Mara is agitated, defensive, fighting against Organa's intuition and growing Force prowess. She considers it a small miracle that her tone retains even a fraction of its normal coolness.

"For a while after Tantiss, maybe a year. But I handled it, I was fine until a few months ago."

"You relapsed?" the princess guesses, and it is not really a guess at all.

"Yes."

Terse, angry. But not at her.

"And you blame Luke?"

(Another not-guess.)

"Not entirely."

Leia waits, spoon dinging against the metal of her bowl.

"Maybe," she concedes, finally turning away from the viewport. "All of his probing, all the time – I don't know. He thought it would help me let go, but it's worse now. And still he pushed."

"I'm sure he didn't mean –"

"Yes he did."

As if diplomacy would work on Mara Jade.

"He just had to keep going. He _wanted _to know. As if I needed to see…" she trails off, hating how quickly her heart was beating against her chest. "As if I need reminders of that kind of cruelty."

Leia has no desire to patronize, not for a second, but she would not be doing her duty as a (friend – is that what they are now?) if she let Mara begin an uphill battle alone.

"Turning to drugs won't help you cope with the damage."

"You say that like you understand."

"Pain and cruelty? Better than most."

"Are you finally admitting kinship to your father, then?" she snaps, mistaking Leia's honesty for pity.

She is met with a cold silence, senses slamming against durasteel.

"That's low, Mara."

She shakes her head, turning back to her vigil.

"Now you know how I feel."

* * *

Solo folds his arms, eyeing his wife with suspicion.

"You despise her, don't you?"

The princess rolls her eyes, berating herself for bringing up the whole situation in the first place. She should've known Han would intentionally try to get under her skin. And she really hates when he does this baiting thing.

"I do not _despise_ her," she snaps, begrudging him her attention. "She just makes me uneasy."

"You scared of her?"

"Of course not."

(At least, not in the way he means.)

"Jealous, then?"

She locks her gaze onto him, brown and righteous and piercing.

"I shouldn't even dignify that."

"Uh huh. And where is our lovely guest now?"

"Not here. I told her she should leave."

Han places his hands against the desk dramatically, eyes narrowing in his trademark smirk of disbelief.

"You what?"

"She needed to calm down, she said so herself. She'll be back."

A bit of a stretch, considering that all Mara had really said was a muttered _sorry_ before bolting, but Han didn't need to know –

"She's not coming back."

"Oh?" she scoffs, challenging his authoritative tone.

"No. I got a feeling. I'm gonna go get her," he declares, tone resolute. He grabs his jacket.

"What do you mean, get her? From where?"

"Well I don't think she went home, Princess."

"And you know that how?" she prompts wryly, skeptical, watching him gather his things.

"Would you?" he quips, door sliding to a shut behind him.

She sits, suddenly alone in the quiet of their apartment.

"No," she answers to no one at all, "I guess I wouldn't."

* * *

He finds her harassing some patron in the shadows of a cantina with a less-than-classy reputation, and for once he is thankful Luke is off-planet.

The kid seeing his girlfriend, or – whatever – trying to seduce and/or threaten some unknown lowlife would probably not do their already rocky relationship any favors.

She doesn't see, hear, or sense him approach, and that gives him – well, he hates to say it – a bad feeling about the whole thing.

"Take a walk, pal," he orders sternly, and she snaps her head in his direction, taking her hand off the man's thigh.

The blaster in his face is enough for this guy, who Han (not)guesses is some sort of dealer. He scrambles away from the booth without so much as a backward glance.

The death glare he receives from her is a nice reminder of why he sticks his neck out for other people all the time.

"You're better than this, Jade."

She attempts to storm away from him, but her departure from the booth is not as smooth as intended, and it's only his hand clutching her elbow that stops her from meeting the floor.

She tries to shove him away, but he strengthens his grip on her.

"Hold it. I think you're done."

"Fuck off, Solo."

He doesn't, instead pushing her back into the booth. A public altercation was not what he had in mind.

"Real nice. Very lady-like."

"Touch me again – "

"Wouldn't dream of it. Now are you going to come with me or not?"

"No. You can get out now."

Han doesn't move, and it isn't until now that he realizes that she can't even meet his eyes. They are glazed over, indistinct in the dim lighting.

"You think you're the only one with problems? You think our pasts are all fine and peachy? You really think this…" he pauses, waving a vague hand towards the rest of the bar, "will change anything?"

Her voice is scathing, and briefly he wonders if women take lessons on these things, because he's heard _that_ tone before.

"I don't need your tough love."

"You certainly needed something from him," he jibes, jabbing a thumb in the other guy's general direction. She is silent, jaw clenched angrily.

"What was he selling? Spice?"

"I don't answer to you."

He ignores her.

"No, not spice. I forgot. You've got a thing for painkillers."

She scoffs at his transparency, openly rolling her eyes at his obvious collusion with his wife.

"Fucking Leia…" she remarks, irritation flashing, suddenly understanding how he found her, or knew about this at all.

"I'd love to be doing that instead, but here I am."

He smirks, and she has the urge to shove his head right through the table's glass. If only her limbs weren't refusing to move.

"So leave. Go home."

His face sobers, and the weird fear in her voice is enough to remind him why he didn't just sic Chewie on her and call it a night.

He looks her dead in the eye, humor and deprecation gone. She has to know he means it.

"You can't go back to this. Not now."

He begins to understand that perhaps her death (sad, angry, elated death) glare is not actually meant for him.

"I never left this."

* * *

Han forces himself to keep a straight face as his wife's expression comes into view. She really has no right to be indignant, since it was her own naiveté that caused this little mess. She should've known, really, that the self-confessed addict Jade (headstrong, guarded, _resilient_ Jade) would not do what she was told.

Especially with Luke off on his Jedi emergency, and the entire underbelly of Coruscant at her disposal.

So if she wanted to start pointing fingers, he'd happily remind her of just who it was that allowed (no, wait, _encouraged_) her to leave. And she's not the one dragging a drunk and strangely quiet – given how…charming…she had been at the cantina – Mara into their guest bedroom.

Leia holds back her protest with a scowl, knowing that any confrontation with the redhead now would just be unfair. She turns to go find a bucket for the inevitable vomit – Mara is attempting to hold her stomach with both arms as Han slowly strings her along – just as they reach the room.

She is unable to even lift herself onto the bed.

"Shit, Jade, how much," he huffs, pulling her up by the shoulders, "did you drink?"

"Not enough," she mumbles, practically incoherent.

Han shakes his head.

"Okay. Sure."

Her expression hardens as she brings her knees up to her chest, arms fully wrapped around her lower torso.

"Don't throw up on my carpet," he warns, setting the bucket his wife just brought next to the bed.

He tells Leia to keep an eye on her with a few meaningful hand gestures, trying not to grin stupidly as she pouts back at her desk.

"Ass," comes the hoarse taunt from the bedroom, quiet and half-hearted.

He leaves the door open, just for that.

* * *

This is not like the burns, or the cravings, or the need for sleep.

Her hands are trembling as they find the little bottle in her jacket, the bottle she had promised herself she would never open again.

But this is different. This is worse. She cannot ignore this anymore.

A wrenching pain in the pit of her stomach, and she doubles over, head spinning.

Her vision blurs, dull and thick and out of her reach. The cool of the floor brushes against her cheek.

This is different.

* * *

Han had left hours ago to run on errands with Chewie (as if she didn't know that _errands_ meant tinker with the _Falcon_ in secret), leaving her alone to file through mountains of briefings while babysitting the twins and their indisposed visitor.

"Hey Mom?" demands one of them, and she tries not to snap.

"What is it, Jacen?" she responds, a little harsh, not looking up from her work.

(The agreement she and Han had made before having children in such uncertain times was that they'd always put them first, no matter the difficulties of the New Republic, but sometimes…)

"Mara's not moving."

Well yes, Han did bring her here to _sleep_ it off, so that really isn't –

"She looks dead."

_No._

That gets Leia out of her chair, rushing past her confused children and sprinting over to the guest room, suddenly understanding why the back of her mind had been tingling nonstop since Han left.

Mara is lying motionless on the floor, skin a stark ghostly white, even in the half-dark. At Leia's touch against her neck (her pulse is weak, breaths far too slow), her eyes seem to open, but they are hazy and unfocused.

The hand she had placed on the floor while checking Mara's vital signs comes back damp, and her stomach drops. There is blood, thick and abnormally dark, pooled underneath Mara's legs, and thoroughly soaked through her pants. There was so much of it, and no visible wound, so why –

Her eyes catch the little orange bottle lying open on the desk, pills scattered from when Mara must have collapsed. Panicky now, Leia orders the twins, watching fearfully in the hallway, to get her comlink.

How many pills had she taken? And why, _why_, would she do this now? After her confession earlier, and drinking all afternoon? But she was bleeding, why was she bleeding like that? What had she done to herself?

Jacen, returning from the kitchen, physically falters after sensing the weight of his mother's dread. Leia snatches the comlink from him, hands stained with red.

Mara had yet to respond to anything at all.

* * *

Hours and hours later, after falling asleep in some stiff hospital chair, Leia awakes to the sounds of violent retching coming from the fresher. It is late, and she has little desire to find one of those irksome medical droids, so she investigates herself.

Pushing the door open lightly, she finds Mara hunched over the toilet, looking as sick as she did when Leia first found her overdosed on the floor.

Tired, and worried that the other woman might perceive this as an intrusion, she considers saying nothing. But she can feel the turmoil, the helplessness; Mara is much less deft at repressing emotions in this current state.

"The charcoal residue can give you stomach problems, for a while afterward," prompts the princess, being entirely too familiar with the process, after that time Jaina accidentally got into what she thought was blue milk.

Breathing heavily, hair tied in a mess behind her head, Mara rests her forehead against the porcelain.

"It's not that," she rasps, voice hoarse from the abuse her throat had taken. She coughs loudly, spitting into the toilet weakly.

"It's not that."

Leia waits.

"I was pregnant."

Her breath hitches for a second, and she instinctively takes a step forward, trying not to project her whirl of compulsion.

The medics told Leia it was hard to say how long Mara had been feeling pain in her abdomen before reaching her breaking point, but towards the end it would have been unbearable. That's probably what had her reaching for the pills, but with her unnaturally high tolerance thanks to her addiction, she took far too many.

Of course, the medics didn't know about her fight with Luke or her mental distress from those Force exercises, but if the pain was _that_ bad –

Wait.

She freezes.

"Was?"

The reek of vomit is enough of an answer.

* * *

"Don't tell Skywalker. Please."

Her speeder was small, comfortable enough, but not one she flew often. With the weight of the silence pressing on them both, it felt even smaller. Mara sat hunched in the passenger seat, pale and ragged.

There was no mistaking her tone. She was pleading. Or about as close to pleading as she could get.

"He has – "

"No. I'd never ask you if I didn't mean it. Please, Leia."

She frowns, surprised at the use of her first – real – name. It was always Organa or Solo or Councilor or Princess or some combination of those, but never Leia. An odd thought strikes her.

"Mara?"

No verbal response, but those haunted green eyes lock onto hers.

"How old are you?" she asks, wondering if it matters.

The redhead turns her head, voice a thousand miles away.

"I don't know."

(It does.)

* * *

They told her it was withdrawals, the first time.

The first time it was sweating, damp and clammy against her skin, followed by debilitating aches that left her folded into herself. Then came the anxiety, heart beating out a rhythm that was too fast _too fast, _and sleep became impossible. Then she would shake, violently, for hours, until she couldn't remember when it started or when it ended.

And then there was the helplessness, the anguish, the terrifying _I'm going to die I'm going to fucking die right here_.

This time, there is that, but she won't – can't – go back to that hospital. Not even for this.

(They cannot help her, and no doctor could lessen this pain.)

They tell her it's normal, that it comes in episodes. They tell her this is the psychological half, and if she tries to internalize that she will fail. Fall. Right back down to the bottom.

They tell her it feels a lot like depression, but they must be wrong, because it's not despair or emptiness or worthlessness.

It is really just nothing at all.

And today (yesterday, tomorrow, she can never tell) all she wants is to hit Luke until he understands, until he answers. _I can't feel you. I can't feel you. Why can't I feel you?_

They say it's just the withdrawals.

She doesn't quite believe them.

* * *

"Do you remember the smell?" he asks, voice a shade colder than normal.

"What?"

Shame warms Leia's skin as she realizes he is blinking back tears. Her brother, her twin, unflappable and kind. The sharer of her soul, consumed in the shadow of holding back agony.

He forgets she can feel it.

"Jabba's palace. Do you remember it?"

_Sweat and liquor and sand and all things deceit._

"Vaguely," she lies, trying to ignore the sudden itch.

"I had forgotten, until Mara…"

The silence deadens.

"I always wondered how she healed so quickly after Wayland. Now I guess I know," and it is hard not to hear the bitterness that lingers.

It kills her, literally wounds her heart, that she cannot help.

"Luke," she calls gently, fingers reaching out for his.

He meets her eye for the first time, and the shadow almost scares her.

"There's something else."

* * *

Turns out, hiding from a Jedi – in her own ship – was not exceedingly clever. Especially from him.

She is curled on the small bed in her quarters, unable to even summon the energy to be annoyed that he found her.

"Mara," he whispers, the palm of his hand warm against her stomach.

She senses, dully, that he must know. His expression, solitary and guilty and still soft somehow, says enough.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

* * *

The sound of the door being slammed open is enough to startle Leia out of her seat, a thousand possibilities racing through her head. She considers reaching for her blaster, until her senses pick up on the familiar intrusion.

Mara.

Who had just broken open the door with a wave of her hand. Not the best start.

(Maybe it was better that the twins weren't home.)

Trying to appear as if she hadn't just been caught off-guard, Leia picked up the glass of wine she had been nursing for the past hour, doing her best to be unreadable.

"I hope that door still works," she remarks dryly, already wary of the other woman's lack of calm.

"You told Skywalker about the miscarriage, didn't you?"

Not altogether taken aback, Leia chastises herself for falling into the trap that her husband loved to call _naiveté_. She had seen this – or a variation of this – coming, to an extent. She just hadn't anticipated Mara's reaction to be so…volcanic.

"What right did you have to throw away my trust like that?" she yells, voice scathing.

Leia releases a breath, steadying the glass in her hand, not relishing just how much physical space had closed between them.

Mara had been delirious and exhausted while begging – actually begging – Leia not to tell Luke, but she can't genuinely have expected anything else?

"You're obviously hurting, it was hurting him too. I had to tell him."

"No you didn't. I asked you not to get involved."

"You came to _me_ with your addiction, remember? You almost died on my floor. You lost my brother's child! Of course I'm involved!" replies Leia, flushed with irritation at the need to defend her actions.

"I don't need your help with this. Or his. I should never have said anything."

Leia scoffs, tone biting.

"That's your problem, Mara. You always have something to prove."

She laughs, cruelly, arms crossing against her chest.

"This coming from you?"

Tense, baiting.

"Something else you're dying to say?"

Poor choice of words, given the circumstances, but neither of them can go back. Not now.

"You're terrible at shielding. I could feel it, that day you flew me home. You were upset about the baby."

"And?" responds Leia coldly, eyeing her quarry with distaste.

"More upset than I was. Why – were you jealous that it wasn't yours?"

There's a pause, stretched and vindictive. Then –

The glass slams against Mara's face without warning, shattering against her skin and sending her sprawling towards the floor. Stunned, she touches a shaking hand to her forehead, heart jumping when her fingers come back wet and stained with crimson.

What was left of her restraint was now in tiny ornate pieces on the ground.

One swift leg movement is all it takes to have Leia flat on her back.

Organa is far from helpless, but her meager self-defense training is no match for the lethal ex-Hand pinning her down. Her fist cracks against her jaw once, twice, three times. On the fourth, Leia stops trying to block and attempts to roll away, but Mara is faster. Both hands catch her at the throat, choking, and it is all a struggling Leia can do to instinctively thrust a knee into Mara's stomach.

Surprisingly, she stifles a strangled noise, and lets go.

Leia scrambles to her feet on shaky legs, face and lungs and eyes burning.

Her boot connects with Mara's abdomen, and again she crumples, unable to fight back. She kicks her again, and another time after that, fuelled by fury and retaliation and the blood leaking out of her nose.

It isn't until she grabs the jagged remnant of her glass that she realizes Mara is on all fours, one arm glued to her stomach, breathing labored. Scarlet streaked across her forehead, smearing her entire cheek.

The regret and the panic hits Leia like a shockwave, crippling her already weakened air supply. She drops the glass, horrified, anger sapped away. She meets the ground again, back resting against the edge of her desk.

Already she feels the swelling of her eye. Mara won't look at her, still hunched on the ground.

Stalemate.

(_Now you know how I feel_, she had said, and she does. She truly does.)

The silence is absolute, walls insulated from the sounds of the city outside. It's only their breathing, and the sickness they both feel.

Leia has her head in her hands, words sticking against her throat.

"After Yavin, and that battle…" she starts, not taking her eyes off the spot of floor she was so focused on. "There were times when I couldn't remember who I was, or where I had been all day. The medics told me it was probably an adverse reaction to whatever they injected me with on the Death Star, but there was nothing they could do."

She hesitates, a chill tingling the back of her neck.

"And then suddenly I'd remember again, all of it, and I couldn't function. I stopped eating, stopped sleeping. I'd lock myself away and relive the despair and the rage and the _terror_, over and over again. One day Han found me holding a blaster to my head, and –"

Her voice is distant, vague. Like she'd do anything to forget. (And isn't that _isn't that_ why this started?)

"And he hit me so hard I thought I actually did die."

Mara turns her head slightly, the only indication that she had been listening.

"So you fell in love with him?"

Leia snorts halfheartedly at her tone.

"No, I started trusting him. And that is the only thing that keeps me alive."

Mara spares no words for her, and there are still no sounds between them, until Leia hears a catch in the throat. Distinct, fraught. Like the wheeze of trying to keep yourself together.

"I should have died," chokes Mara, tears falling freely, air coming up in gasps. Limbs still planted on the ground, shaking. "I never knew. That was _my_ child. I never – I should have died."

She cannot move. Her shoulders shake silently.

Leia shuffles over to her, back of her throat clawing at her. She places one steadying hand on her back, the other resting over Mara's.

"It feels like I should've died," she repeats, her fingers like ice. Cold, unresponsive.

Leia (strong, passionate, _honest _Leia) remembers the sting of Han's hand against her cheek, the flatness of Luke's eyes after Bespin, the burning pyre in the seclusion of the forest, and how she cried and cried and cried the day the twins were born.

"It always will."

[END]

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**A/N: **_Alright that's that, thanks for reading! Leave a review and be on your way! Enjoy your Wednesday! (Or you know, whatever.)_


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